Holy Writings, Sacred Text: The Canon of Early Christianity

An internationally respected biblical scholar investigates the origins of the Christian canon. John Barton explores the reasons behind the development of the New Testament and pursues the historical factors involved in combining these books with the Hebrew Scriptures.

Paperback, 224 pages

Published
February 1st 1998
by Westminster John Knox Press
(first published 1997)

Community Reviews

Ez Beauchamp gave me this book from his library when I was hunting for something to read. Thank you Ez! It took a while to get into this one because the author seemed to assume that the reader was more familiar with the issues than I was. Nevertheless, patience paid off and I found this a very interesting read.

Barton looks at the question of the creation of the New Testament Canon. He notes that for a long period of New Testament history, the idea of a canon of scripture was an anachronism. NeveEz Beauchamp gave me this book from his library when I was hunting for something to read. Thank you Ez! It took a while to get into this one because the author seemed to assume that the reader was more familiar with the issues than I was. Nevertheless, patience paid off and I found this a very interesting read.

Barton looks at the question of the creation of the New Testament Canon. He notes that for a long period of New Testament history, the idea of a canon of scripture was an anachronism. Nevertheless, while there might not have been a canon per se, there were texts that were clearly revered and used and therefore created a de facto canon of texts that were considered valuable. Those texts mostly cover much of what has been included in the canon.

He also covers issues of understanding scripture. I learned a lot from this author....more